Sailing Into 2015

2014 was a big year.  2013 was no joke, what with buying a boat, and getting married, and going back to school, but 2014 . . . whew.  Well, you know most of it.  Getting the boat into ocean-cruising shape, cruising said ocean for 14 weeks, coming home, buying a house and learning that we're adding a new member to our crew in April 2015 . . . well, big year.  

As to the new crew member, if you didn't know already, surprise!  I've started a couple blog posts titled "Two Departed and Three Returned," and attempted to write a follow up to Why is Cruising Like Having a Baby? but the truth is for the first 20 weeks or so of this newest adventure I felt lousy basically all the time and didn't have much good to say about it.  Going to my Invasion Games class  and playing soccer with a bunch of competitive 20 year old PE majors while constantly fearing that I might throw up on one of them, or exhaust myself to the point of complete uselessness for the next several days, sort of sucked.  And that's too bad, because playing soccer for class is rad, and I'm a super competitive 31 year old who can usually hold her own.  So feeling lousy all the time sucked, especially compared to how physically well I usually feel.  It also made me sound super whiny and ungrateful when I tried to write about it.  Add to that the necessity of attending to school work, and . . . no blog.  

But here we are!  January 31, and we're on a fine reach!  After 4 months of not doing much riding and hardly any running I finally feel good again!  I've been running every day and getting out on some road rides (MTBing is out of the question - I can't make it up a single climb).  And that's all weird because I'm up 15 pounds and every muscle attached to my pelvis is experiencing some kind of painful metamorphosis. But my energy is so much better and I actually feel like myself again, for the first time in a long, long time.  The little second mate (position of deckhand has already been filled by Mr. Noble) is poking and kicking and moving around, too, and that's pretty fun.  My stomach is finally happy enough that I can enjoy my morning cup of (decaf) tea without incident.  Joy.

But onto sailing!  Obviously we've had none, as Tri-oomph stayed high and dry after our return.  I think I've been out on the water two days total - one paddling and one motoring, neither my favorite activities.  We were able to find barn-space for Tri-oomph to spend the winter, and have compiled a list of repairs to make before we can get off the hard in the spring.  The goal is to be sailing in early April, because getting the the mast stepped and the boat launched while responsible for a small person sounds rather more complex.  We've decided, at present, to skip the New England Boat Show this year, since they don't have a huge sailing section, and an even smaller multihull presence.  Instead, I'm trying to convince Cody that we (all 3 of us) should go down to Newport in May when the Volvo Ocean Race comes into port for a few days.  That looks to be a lot of fun.  At any rate, we plan on sailing as much as we can this summer, and are planning to finally take our long-awaited trip to the Isle of Shoals, maybe in August.  So no, not as much sailing as last summer, but hopefully many good days and nights on our little boat.  

Anyway, cheers (toasted with sparkling apple juice) to fair winds and calm seas in 2015!

So much sanding.  

 So shiny!

 She floats!

 We ate a lot of ice cream.

 Um, yeah?

 But we saw a lot of amazing sunsets.

Okay, that was a pretty pathetic highlights reel, but most of my good photos aren't on this computer, so, I dunno, maybe I'll add some later.  

Last Hurrah

We had read stories of people running into submerged logs and stumps and catching their rigging in overhanging trees on the Dismal Swamp Canal, but on our trip south along it's 25 mile length was uneventful.  Not so for the northbound trip, where we hit two or three submerged logs and caught our rigging on some overhanging trees.  Oops.  Cody was not happy.  We had arisen early and made good time, catching the outgoing lock at 1 PM despite a stop at the North Carolina Visitor's Center and a hike around some of the trails there.  We were happy to talk to Robert, the lockmaster, again, and he gave us some excellent advice for our night in Norfolk/Portsmouth.  

On our previous trip through the the area we'd stopped at the Portsmouth town dock but noticed signs indicating that overnight tie-up wasn't an option.  Robert assured us that we could tie up overnight.  We were able to find dock space, although it required a tricky piece of parallel parking that we'd never have been able to pull off at the beginning of the trip.  Go team.  Later in the evening we walked to the Commodore Theater, about 5 blocks away from the dock, also on Robert's recommendation.  The Commodore was built in 1945, and has the look and feel of the golden age of movie theaters (whatever that age is, I don't know, I just made that up).  Anyway, it's cool.  They ripped out the lower seats a number of years ago and put in individual tables, seating between 2 and 6 people.  There's a phone on the table and you call in your dinner order to the kitchen, and they bring it out to you while you watch the movie.  Super rad.  Also, the movie was incredibly cheap - $7 if you paid cash, to see a movie that had only been out for a week.  It was really neat - I wish the small theaters around here would follow the model, because it's rad.  

Anyway, we had a nice date night, but we should have known better than to tie up to the dock.  We have back luck at docks.  Our boat just doesn't afford enough privacy and sound proofing to be able to rest well with street lights and sounds coming in.  Oh well.  

We got moving the next morning with no clear destination in mind, just heading up the Chesapeake towards Baltimore.  The wind was light and variable, however, so we didn't make very good progress and dropped anchor about 40 miles north of Norfolk.  The next day we had light wind in the morning but it picked up in the afternoon allowing us to turn off the motor and have a lovely sail.  I cooked dinner while we tried to pick up a few more miles, and we ate on the trampoline while Martha the Autopilot kept us on course.  It was a beautiful evening, and as we neared our anchorage we were surrounded by a pod of huge dolphins.  Not a huge pod, but huge dolphins.  They stayed with us, feeding on fish in the shallower water, while we sailed the last mile or so.  We dropped anchor and settled in the cabin for the evening.  

There tide and wind were in opposition, creating a bit of an eddy, and Tri-oomph likes to move all around on the anchor under the best of conditions.  We twisted around and the anchor line ended up getting wrapped around the centerboard - we heard it creaking against the hull of the boat and went on deck to sort it out.  I tied a longer line to the anchor line using a bolon, and walked it around the side of the boat.  I handed the line off to Cody, who walked it around the stern and then pulled to see if it was free.  And that was when the bolon pulled free and we lost our trusted Danforth anchor that had held us in all conditions we'd encountered.  

Now, as the tie-er of this knot I felt a certain degree of responsibility (guilt) although I know in my heart it was the same solid knot I'd tied a hundred times in our anchor line to no ill-consequence.  Cody was . . . upset.  Not at me, but at the potential loss of the anchor.  We threw out the backup anchor (a smaller Danforth) and Cody decided to dive and try to find the line and retrieve the anchor.  At this point it was almost dark, however, and the water in the Chesapeake is not the same clear water of Florida and the Bahamas.  It was only 8 feet deep, but couple that with a strong current and it was an exercise in futility.  Cody realized this after a couple minutes and hauled himself back on deck with pronouncements of irate failure.  We had the presence of mind to mark a Man-Overboard point on the GPS when the knot had let go before we'd drifted too far so we had a decent idea whereabouts the anchor might be, but the line could have drifted in any direction and would surely be at the very bottom.  After trying to motor over it, dragging the other anchor in the hopes of snagging the line for about a half hour we gave up and set the small anchor for the night.

Now, we'd been getting some water in the rear outrigger supports, which in turn infiltrated the box where the electronic wiring runs.  As a result, the alarm for our depth sounder hadn't been working in a few days.  Unbeknownst to us, we left the depth sounder on that night.  At about 1 AM I awoke to a feeble beeping sound coming from the depth sounder.  I dug out the iPad and saw that we'd drifted about a mile and a half, our anchor dragging helplessly along with us, and were 3 feet of water, about to run aground.  Sigh.  Silently thanking our depth sounder for coming through in the pinch, I woke Cody and we motored closer to shore and reset the anchor.  In the eddy we'd been in before Tri-oomph had swung around again, this time wrapping the chain around the anchor flukes, rendering it no more than a light weight attached to the bow.  Hoping that this time we'd be fine, we went back to bed.  

We awoke the next day having not dragged again (yay!) and decided to dedicate another couple hours to possible anchor retrieval.  The cost of replacing the anchor alone is only about $100, but add 10 feet of heavy chain and 100 fee of good rope and it's closer to $250, which we weren't (and aren't) in a position to afford.  As we motored over to our MOB point where we'd last seen our dear anchor, we saw the water was filled with jellyfish.  Not the benign Cannonballs that we'd seen all along the Georgia coast, but tentacled, menacing Sea Nettles.  They won't kill you, unless you're allergic, but they can delivery a nasty sting.  We suited Cody up on a pair of my leggings (dashing!) and his rash guard shirt, and he jumped back in to look for the anchor.  While he didn't get stung, he also didn't find the anchor.  We gave up and bade our trusty Danforth farewell.  

Tucker was coming to get us the next day so we had to find a boat ramp that we could reach by the next morning and he could find.  We picked one up a river, unfortunately still far south of Baltimore.  We motor sailed up the river for most of the day, then found a restaurant with a tie-up and got some dinner.  We were in Maryland so I got bold and ordered crab cakes.  I don't know why.  I'm sure they're very good, but every time I eat crab or lobster I think I'm eating big sea-bugs, because that's what they are.  We asked the incredibly curmudgeonly bar tender/owner if we could stay on his dock overnight, and he allowed it.  While we ate the other guy at the bar talked Cody's ear off while I wished we'd gotten a table instead.  At one point he asked me what I did, and I told him I was in school to be a teacher, to which he replied that I'd never make any money like that.  Oh the people you meet.  

We had a good night at the dock, though, and woke early the next morning to prepare the boat for the trailer.  We packed stuff up and then dropped the mast.  We usually drop the mast with the trailer winch, but we were on a dock so we had only the spinnaker halyard.  I had the halyard with a couple wraps around the winch, and Cody stood on the cabin guiding it down.  It was easy to lower at first, but our line ended up being too short and I wasn't able to get enough wraps with the rope and the mast crashed down the last 3 feet, almost (but not quite!) cracking the solar panel.  Ugh.  

We got everything wrapped up, though, and motored across the river to the boat ramp, where we folded up the pontoons and settled in to wait for Tucker and Cody's mom who had accompanied him.  

They arrived, we loaded Tri-oomph onto the trailer, and were bound for home.  That night, at about 1 AM, we arrived back in Gloucester, 14 weeks to the day from when we'd left.  

I hope this post doesn't sound negative, or like our last week on the boat sucked or anything, because it was actually great, despite the anchor, solar panel, crab cakes, and shifty winds.  I'm writing this almost 3 weeks after getting home and I feel incredibly sad that the trip is over.  I'm happy to be home, of course, and seeing Riley was amazing, but I think I'd still rather be back out on the water (maybe with Riley in tow, this time).  We were so lucky to get the chance to take this trip, and I would do it again, no differently, in a heartbeat.  But it's always sad when adventures end, even if another is just beginning.  

Now, in a departure from my normal Simpsons and MST3K and Seinfeld quotes -

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."  -T.S. Elliot

 At the Commodore!

 Water sloshing around in the electronics box.

 So sad out of the water.

 Crossing the George Washington Bridge.

The best part of coming home.

Back in the Ditch

We'd heard good things about Oriental, NC from other cruisers but hadn't stopped on the way south because we'd hugged the eastern side of the Pamlico Sound and visited Hattaras and Ocracoke.  Because the North wind forced us into the ICW we we were passing right through Oriental and figured it would be a good place to fix our sail and get ourselves sorted out.

We pulled up to the free town dock in the morning after  spending a quiet night anchored in a river up from Morehead.  

Now, a side note.  Over the course of the summer Cody and I have been almost exclusively in eachothers' company. As you might imagine, spending that much unalleviated time with one's significant other can seriously wear on the patience. That morning as we pulled up anchor we were at each other's throats, and it's seriously a miracle neither one of us jumped (or was pushed, with an anchor tied to their ankles) from the boat. It happens.  I think that we're much stronger as a partnership for the events of the summer, and we've definitely learned to work well as a team, but sometimes we wanted to kill eachother.  Again, it happens.  I have no idea how a couple could work together.  If Cody and I owned a restaurant together I'd definitely end up hitting him in the head with a fryer basket at some point.  

Anyway, spitting mad and no longer speaking to eachother we pulled up to the town dock in Oriental.  I noted with pleasure that the dock was located just across the street from the local coffee shop, as much of my grumpiness was due to not having any coffee yet that morning (we'd lost our cloth coffee filter overboard and Cody had been filtering his through an old UNR Cycling Team sock - no thank you).  After we docked an older couple came up to us to talk about the boat.  It turned out they were bonafide seapeople, having lived aboard for 20 years and made several Atlantic crossings.  They were incredibly friendly, offering to drive us to the grocery store, and bring us to their home to shower and do laundry.  It was really fun talking to them, and we would get another chance later in the day.  We talked to them about our sail problem and they immediately called a couple they knew who does sail repairs.  The couple drove right down to inspect our sail, give us an estimate, and took it home with them, promising it by the next morning (mind you, this as a sunday).  

We hadn't had breakfast so we turned down the offer for the ride and grabbed a cup of coffee and a bearclaw before walking to the grocery store.  After being on the boat for so long it's lovely to just be able to walk (despite offers from at least half a dozen other people offering to drive us to the store).

The local grocery store was nice and shockingly inexpensive.  As we walked back toward the boat an older woman stopped in the road to offer us a ride back to the docks.  We were fairly loaded down so we accepted.  

We had a steady stream of visitors to the boat all day.  At one point we walked over to an art gallery across the street to look around.  As we were looking at some neat paintings another older couple  came into the gallery and walked over to talk to us.  They had seen the boat and were trimaran owners themselves.  Also extremely accomplished sailors.  As the day progressed we heard from a number of people, "Oh, you should meet Manfred Rott!  He and his wife have sailed all over teh place nd have great stories."  And we did!  They came and sought us out.  We felt special.  

We received a call from the sail makers in the afternoon and they told us they'd finished our repair early (on Sunday!).  We walked down to pick it up and chatted for a while.  They told us about the town watermelon social later in the day and said we should walk down to it.  Apparently a number of years ago a local watermelon grower had brought his harvest to market only to be offered a ridiculously low price.  Screw this, he said, and he gave all the watermelon to the town in the form of a watermelon social.  His wife, 96 years young, and kids still hold the social every year.  We walked down to the social that afternoon and gorged on watermelon and had another chance to talk to Anne and Neville.  Also in attendence were a number of other older couples, one of whom had circumnavigated twice and the other who had a couple transatlantics.  It was really inspring and fun to talk to them all.

Back at the dock we met another couple who had pulled in for the evening.  They were from Bozeman, MT, of all places.  They had two grown kids and had left everything behind to buy a boat and cruise.  Cody asked them if they'd sailed before making the jump.  "Nope!" They'd lived their whole lives on a ranch in Montana.  What prompted them to make such a drastic change?  The reply was the best I've heard, "Life begins when you get outside your comfort zone.  Nobody wants to hear about us sitting around watching reruns."  Life begins when you get outside your comfort zone!  So perfect.

Anyway, we finally got tucked in for the night and finally watched A Perfect Storm.  Is it weird that neither of us had ever seen it?  We got a nice night of sleep and then pulled out early to head north.

We were luckily able to sail and make great time for the better part of the next day.  The wind was great heading across the sounds, and we were able to sail a number of rivers as well.  Finally we pulled into a marina to get some fuel.  We should have known from the look of the place that there was some bad mojo.  To get in we had to pass a breakwater, that appeared to be snow fencing like you'd see out west to keep the snow drifts from blowing across the road.  Additionally, the entire length of it was completely lined with seagulls.  Like from The Birds.  Like I'm pretty sure seagulls had eaten all the humans and now ran the town.  We pulled up to a dock, also completely inundated with seagulls, and scraped our pontoon up on it.  It was completely covered in seagull poop.  Completely.  Covered.  In.  Poop.  There was one other boat there and the guy came over as we were trying, unsuccessfully, to get tied and bumpered up before we did anymore damage to the boat.  He unhelpfully informed us that the dockmaster was gone (???) for a while, and while we waited for him so we could get fuel we should move over by his boat.  Gone?  No, we'll not be waiting for him to return, thanks very much.  He was stranded there because his alternator had gone out and he was waiting for a repair.  I wouldn't be surprised if he's still tied to that dock and has been completely enslaved by the seagull overlords.  It was a weird place.

Wait we did not, instead proceeding further on our course to another marina that did have fuel but, alas, no beer.  We wanted to get through the next stretch of canal before dark to make our next day a little shorter.  It ended up being a very pretty motor, and we saw two bald eagles!  We finally dropped anchor as the canal opened up into a larger river and had a nice calm night.

The next day we awoke to rain and fog, and I lay around in the cabin while Cody Grunden'ed up and got us moving.  We crossed the Albemarle Sound towards Elizabeth City and the wind was light and annoying and the waves choppy and annoying.  We reached Elizabeth City and decided to not stop, being not in the mood for any confederate sermonizing.  We proceeded to a marina to refuel for our next day of motoring through the Dismal Swamp, which happily stocked beer, then motored another couple miles and dropped anchor for the night.

Anyway, I guess the rest of the trip is going to have to wait for the next blog post, because this has gone on long enough.  Spoiler alert - we're home now, and now that things are feeling more settled I'm feeling incredibly wistful for the adventure and freedom of our liveaboard experience, which is motivating me to write this all down while it's still relatively fresh.  

 Docked in Oriental, NC.

 Watermelon Social!

 Yes.

 Fixed Mainsail.

We attracted some attention in Oriental and ended up on their website homepage.

Voyaging Part 2

As far as cities go (I'm more of a fan of locals sans people) Charleston is pretty cool.  We know our way around all right by now and it's pretty relaxing to anchor off of City Marina and just chill.  Exhausted as we were after our long sail up from Key Largo it was great having that time to recover.   We ended up staying an extra day - not because of Bertha so much as the strong northerly wind that was forcast.  No sense in fighting a headwind in somewhat larger seas (due to the hurricane).  When we'd been through Charleston on the trip south I'd wanted to go to the aquarium and we'd decided to skip it after a shockingly expensive trip to the Harris Teeter.  This time we went, and it was rad.

We departed on Wednesday morning in no particular rush.  We made coffee and breakfast and waited for the tide to start heading out.  Our goal was to make it to Ocracoke, NC, about 250 miles north.  We would have to head west to get around the Frying Pan Shoal before cutting north, passing just west of Cape Lookout and then going in the Ocracoke Inlet.  

Well, long story short, we didn't have as stellar of conditions for this leg of the trip as we'd had for the first.  Our first day and a half we covered barely 80 miles, making it just past the Frying Pan.  It was hot and we weren't moving.  It's difficult to express how disheartening it is to have no wind on a sailboat.  I read one book about circumnavigation and the author said something like, "and deep in the heart of the becalmed sailor lies the fear, however irrational, that the wind willl never return."  I'm completely paraphrasing, but it's sort of true.  

Anyway, on the second evening we were cooking dinner, moving along at a frustratingly sedate 1.5 knots, when the boat jybed hard as the wind abruptly switched from southerly at less than 5 knots to northerly at 15-20.  It was pretty alarming.  As a novice sailor I have a tendency to feel somewhat betrayed when the ocean or conditions do something unexpected, like a cat who thinks you're carrying her to the kitchen for dinner and then you plop her in the sink for a bath.  What - how - why?!?! How could you do this to me?!

Melodramatics aside, we had to tack west.  The wind increased and the seas built a bit.  Cody sailed us through the night.  We made surprising decent headway as we struggled against the stiff north wind. When I came on deck just before dawn Cody informed me that the mainsail had torn.  The seam just above the top battan had separated a month before and Cody had put a beautiful patch on it (sewing through all the old holes for three hours). The new rip was on either side of the patch job and it was not cool.  At this point we decided we should just take our chances with a questionable inlet and get out of the chop and north wind.  To get there we'd just drop our maimed main and motor.  

Now, our reliable little outboard is raised and lowered along an aluminum track.  The mechanism is getting a little old and the springs aren't so hot anymore.  At some point during the night we must've come hard off a wave and the impact caused the track in the motor mount to bend.  The result was that the engine was stuck in the lowest position and operation would cause it to suck in sea water.  Engines don't like that.  Cody at this point hadn't slept in far too long and was getting pretty frustrated trying to bend the mount back into place as we crashed through the chop with our sad sail. Sleep deprivation is an ugly thing.  Anyway, I suggested that we heave-to so that the motion of the boat and the drag on the motor would be lessened.  That did the trick and he was able to bend the track sufficiently that we were able to move the motor up a couple clicks.  Phew.  As we were talking about a game plan and looking at the inlet we were going to attempt to enter we noticed a half dozen dolphins swimming around the boat.  They were just sort of swimming around in circles, coming to the surface to give us some dolphin side-eye.  It was like they were checking up on us!  "You's guys OK?  Why isn't your green vessel moving?"  It was pretty amazing.  We gave them the a-okay and they swam off.  

Cody finally got to go to bed and I motored us through the nasty chop towards the inlet.  I heaved-to again for another hour or so hoping to have a favorable tide.  There were three huge Navy ships doing some sort of training exercises in the bay around us - blowing things up and stuff.  It was entertaining while we waited.  

We made it in the inlet, only running aground twice!  The tide chart I'd consulted had lied to me and we were, in fact, fighting a tide despite my best intentions.  C'est la vie.  We dropped anchor and both took a 4 hour nap.  It was amazing.  We woke up just long enough to heat up some prepared soup and watch a stupid movie, then fell back asleep for the night.  

When we awoke the next day the weather was gloriously cool!  We'd gone from baking heat to rain and a north wind during our sail, so the partially cloudy skies and cool air temperatures felt like heaven.  We motored up the ICW to Morehead City and tied up to a restaurant dock for lunch.  There were a couple other boats tied up there and a big deck with full tables adjacent to the dock.  When we were casting off I made some snarky comment to Cody about not waiting for me to get the bowline and he says everyone on the dock heard me and started cracking up.  I guess when you're at sea for a little while it's easy to forget that in public you might want to moderate the snarky commentary.  Or not.

At any rate, why were we on the ICW?

First a story  

When I raced bikes I would almost always reach a point in the season when I got burned out and didn't want to ride anymore.  Or, if I was racing road I wanted to ride my MTB, if I was racing CX I wanted to MTB and go to yoga or something.  It's as abrupt as loving it one day and waking up the next morning filled with dread for having to go to a race, or go do intervals.  

Well, I reached that threshold with the boating life.  When that north wind snuck up on us I was abruptly Over It, and wanted to do whatever the opposite of sailing is (drowning?). Cody talked to his brother Tuck when we were anchored south of Morehead and he offered to drive down and pick us up with the trailer.  Sold!  How much do I freaking owe my brother-in-law (and Elise!) after this trip?  They watched Riley and my kitties (they even learned Big KItty's spirit name, and it is Gandalf, and he will forever be known as such), and now this.  Um, maybe I can weed the greenhouse or something for you guys?  Or, uh, work on your bikes?  I lack the skills to be of much use to people who make and grow things for a living.  I try not to be, but I'm a killer of plants.  

But I digress.

So as you can see, our voyage back into a cruise northward, trying to get further up so Tuck doesn't have to drive as far.  And more on that later!

I love the aquarium! Cody says it's ok

Cap needs a captains hat, right?

Whatever else I have to say about being offshore, the sunsets are indisputably superior.

It was damp.

Voyaging Part 1

Key Largo to Charleston - 500 miles - 3.5 days

We departed Key Largo on Thursday morning at 3:00 AM.  Why 3?  For some reason it's become our agreed-upon appropriate hour of departure.  Cody took the first watch while I caught a couple extra hours of sleep - probably the only reason why I've agreed to our agreed-upon departure time.  We quickly progressed into the gulf stream, where we got 4 free knots from the current.  We made good progress with a southeastern wind, generally trying to stay out of the sun.  We heard that the heat index was up at 105.  Hot hot hot.  For some reason now, I can't remember much of our first day.  We started a log book, but after the first night I was the only one filling it out so it was, unsurprisingly, quickly abandoned.  My note in the "comments" section coming off watch on Thursday afternoon was, "F#$%ing hot."  At one point I saw a fin emerge off the starboard bow, and a large black shape moving just below the surface.  "Cody!  A dolphin, or shark, or whale or something!" I said.  As we passed 6 feet away from it we saw that it was a big whale shark!  15 feet long, very cool.

There were some thunderstorms rolling around the Florida coastline that evening but we threaded a couple needles and never got caught in one.  At West Palm Beach we diverted out of the strongest path of the gulf stream and paid a price for it when we were becalmed the next day.  We were moving at an excruciating 1 knot for a couple hours as we tried to make our way further west and into the stronger currents.  The gulf stream may throw some wacky weather at us, but nothing is worse than being becalmed, in Florida, when it's 105 degrees.  We folded out the bed and lay around the cabin, letting the autopilot guide us and popping out every 20 minutes or so to watch for boat traffic (you know what voyager Larry Pardey said about being becalmed?  Es tiempo por amor.)  The wind picked up later in the afternoon, and between that and the current we were ripping along at 10+ knots.  Cody had been dragging a fishing line and we caught a little bluefin tuna as I was beginning to cook dinner.  We probably wouldn't have kept it but it had a rough trip back up to the boat and was, well, dead by the time we pulled him in.  We had one of our nicest dinners of the trip - blackened tuna, red beans and rice, and steamed kale.  Pretty classy.

I took the first watch of the night while Cody tried to get some sleep.  The wind and seas built as the sun fell and I performed my first solo-sail-reefing.  Eventually the wind was gusty enough that I wanted to drop the jib, but this time I woke Cody up to help me out, then he went back to sleep.  Running on only the reefed main we were still moving along at 8+ knots, so I figured we were making good progress. Too much time spent staring at the compass made me a little seasick, so I awakened Cody an hour before the end of my watch and crawled into bed.

The wind dissipated throughout the night and by the time I relieved Cody in the morning we were flying full sail and had slowed down a bit.  We continued to lose speed as we once again met those mid-morning doldrums.  At this point we were 80 miles off the coast of the Georgia/Florida border and still 160 miles from Charleston.  Still, we were moving with the current.  Again we hunkered in the cabin during the afternoon, avoiding the blazing sun.  The wind and seas picked up earlier in the day, and we were happy to be moving along at 10 knots again.  Cody was taking a nap in the cabin  while I stood on deck enjoying the cooler evening air and our speed.  I saw a black fin emerge just ncxt to the starboard pontoon, then other off port.  Dolphins!  We were moving at 9 knots and they were swimming alongside us, keeping pace!  They moved behind us and raced along in our wake, and I could see that they were spotted dolphins.  "Cody!"  I kept calling him, but he was dead to the world.  Finally I knew I had to get him, this was so cool!  I shook him awake - he thought that something must be terribly wrong at first - and told him to come look at these dolphins.  Of course by then they were gone.  And I learned a valuable lesson - don't fall overboard while Cody's sleeping, he won't hear your screams.

Haha.

Anyway, Cody took the helm at 10 or so after we'd reefed the main to keep the boat from lurching around too much in the 20+ knot gusts.  I slept until 3:30 AM, then came on deck to give him a break.  He had reached the Hallucinatory Stage of sleeplessness, and once on deck I saw that all along the South Carolina coast, about 30 miles away, were massive thunderstorms with nonstop lightening strikes.  Nonetheless I sent him below to sleep and I reduced our sail hoping that by the time we reached the shore the storms would have dissipated.  The sun rose and I could see that they hadn't.  Oh well.  As I tracked the movement of the storms in front of us I saw that we were going to get hit no matter what course I took (if you don't count going backwards).  I decided to drop sail altogether and just motor.  I went below to tell Cody that I'd be starting the motor (he'd been asleep about 2.5 hours at this point).  I gently shook him awake and told him my plan.  He groggily replied, "Are we on a bouy or at anchor?"  I stifled a giggle and patted his head, replying, "We're underway, but you'll remember eventually."  I motored for a bit, then decided that was stupid, so I just killed the motor and we both went to sleep in the cabin for 2 hours while Tri-oomph drifted around in the storms.  We were out of any boat traffic and far way from anything to run aground on, so we figured we were safe.  During our 2 hour nap we drifted about 1.5 miles southeast, but it was definitely worth it for the restful nap.  By now we were only 26 miles from Charleston and surrounded by storms and choppy seas.  Donning our foul weather gear we motor sailed with the reefed main until the wind became more favorable, then raised the jib and killed the engine.

We reached Charleston and dropped anchor by 3 in the afternoon, making out first leg of this return voyage an even 3.5 days to cover the 500 miles.  We rejoyced in being out of Florida and back in Charleston, where we'd spent several days on the southbound journey.  It almost felt like coming home.  We walked the mile to downtown and got dinner at the bbq joint we'd eaten at with Noble when he'd been with us, then walked home (the boat) and got the most solid night of sleep I can remember ever experiencing.  This morning we met a nice guy from Minnesota on a lovely steel boat with a little terrier mix named Butter who rides on the front of his kayak and then sits on his lap when he pedals his bike wtih her paws on the handlebars.  It's amazing.  I cannot wait to be with my dog again.  Cannot.  Wait.  It's rainy and cool and it feels so flipping amazing to not be sweating and hot.  Tropical Storm Bertha is passing well offshore, and when we head back out to sea tomorrow the most we'll see from it is some 5 foot seas.

The truth is that we were out in stuff the last couple days that is completely safe for a competent sailor, but would have scared the life out of me a couple weeks ago.  I'm so happy with how we managed everything and worked as a team.  I'm thrilled with how Tri-oomph handled everything, and I'm happy to say that I am understanding what she has to say, instead of just trying to intuit what needs to be done (like being able to feel from the handling if sail needs to be reduced or trimmed, rather than having to guess or ask Cody).  We could not have done this trip without our amazing autopilot, a Raymarine ST1000 we've named Martha.  Bless you, Martha.

Our next stop is Ocracoke, although there's a very good chance we won't stop at all.  We'll go out and around the Frying Pan, around Lookout Shoals, and into Ocracoke inlet.  From there we'll sail up the Pamlico Sound and motor through the Dismal Swamp Canal (I'm excited to see the lock operator, Robert, again and share danish and coffee with him again).  From Norfolk, VA it's only 400 miles to Massachusetts, and we hope conditions allow us to make it in a straight shot.  Through the canal, across Massachusetts Bay, and into Gloucester.  It's too early to start thinking about the implications of the end of a fantastic adventure, but never to soon to get excited to see my dog.

You just can't beat the sunsets at sea.

Foul weather-ready.

Hello, Charleston!

That was a really boring collection of photos given the awesomeness of the trip. I'll do better next time.

Business in Miami and Party in the Keys

First, the news.

Around the time that we were bumping our way against a strong southerly in the Pamlico sound I said, "I don't want to sail home."  We'd been going back and forth between sailing or flying/trailering the the boat home, running through timelines and logistical considerations.  The various options surrounding navigation around Cape Hattaras did me in, and Cody was quick to acquiesce.  It would give us more time down south and we'd have fewer concerns regarding our trip home.  Well, somewhere out around Bimini, in one of our many afternoons spent read-swim-nap-reading, I quickly finished a book about the first nonstop circumnaviation.  It inspired me.  I think Cody had been pondering for some time if he could work things just right so he could sail home, with or without me (ostensibly I'd be flying home, not abandoned on a deserted island).  Well, there was a convergence in our thinking and we decided (rather impulsively on my part) that we wanted to sail home.  What could be more trioomphant than sailing back into Gloucester harbor after 3+ months away?  Nothing, of course.  It was with this hope of a marathon sail home (we planned for 2 weeks, while it took us 2 months to get down here) at I took the helm in the dark on our sail back from Bimini.  I felt good, I felt good about our decision.  

As we neared Miami, about 10 miles out and still in the most powerful area of the gulf stream, we saw some thunderstorms to our west.  The wind was blowing from the southwest, so I thought they might miss us.  As we grew closer it became clear that we were going to get wet, so we fastened things down and went through our normal quicky thunderstrorm prep.  It was then that I saw a water spout (a tornado, of sorts, on the water) start to form about a mile or two off the starboard bow.  A dark funnel dropped from the thunderheads, and a mirrored funnel rose from the sea to join with the former.  It's difficult to estimate size at sea, from that distance, and through the dread-colored lenses from which I saw it, but I'd estimate it's height at 400 feet and breadth at 10-15.   It was completely terrifying.  I called Cody on deck to point out this horrifying specter.  I pointed the boat south-southwest, motoring directly into the gulf stream; we were going about a knot.  Cody took the time to more fully fasten everything down, we donned life jackets and set up safety lines.  It was a very tense 10 minutes as we navigated away from this horrifying storm, but due to our change in course we only caught the edge of the rain.  The tension, for me, lingered until we were in the channel leading to Miami.  

This fear led me to feel a little hasty in agreeing to sail home.  The anxiety stayed with me during our time in Miami and on our two day sail to the Keys.  It was only anchored off Key Largo that I voiced my growing unease, knowing full well that telling Cody we could sail home and then taking it back would be like giving Riley a Thanksgiving turkey and then snatching it back after one bite.  Ouch.  I knew he had to go, now.  We talked about our options and what, specifically, I was uneasy about.  My biggest concerns were thunderstorms we were sure to encounter in Florida (every damn day here) and Hatteras.  Cody brought up the possibility of his sailing home alone.  While I've no doubt that he could do so safely, the unpleasantness of not hearing from him while he was at sea for 2 weeks, and the regret I'd undoubtedly have at not joining him, made any concerns I had about embarking on the trip myself seem insignificant.  We discussed finding another able sailor to join him, or both of us, but our list of possibles was short and both Pip and Timbah were otherwise engaged.  In an effort to assuage my concerns Cody brought up the option of staying inside Hatteras - sailing up the Pamlico (my arch nemesis of water-bodies) and then jumping on the ICW to Norfolk.  It would add a day or two to our transit, but just knowing I had that bail-out option, should the conditions not be ideal around the Cape, made me feel considerably better at the prospect.  That decided it - we'd sail home.  

So here we are in Key Largo, preparing to head north tomorrow.  There is a low pressure system out in the Atlantic that we'll be keeping an eye on, but should it develop into anything alarming we have ample time to take action and find a hole to hide in.  Any possibility of it developing and heading up the east coast is still at least a week away.  We're getting the boat in tip-top shape, and are heading out in a few to pick up provisions - sticking to easily preparable foods lest the seas be rough and cooking unpleasant.  If all goes well we'll be home in 2-3 weeks.  I cannot wait to see my dog.  And my kitties.  And our friends and family.  And I'm surprisingly excited about this last big challenge of our adventure.  

***

But a little about our time in Miami and the Keys!

When we reached Miami (post water spout incident) we knew we had to contact Customs and take care of business before we could do anything else.  This is made exceedingly difficult.  I was given an 800 number to call to check in, and called it as we motored up the channel, well aware that we would be passing the Customs office en route to our anchorage and wanting to take care of everything as efficiently as possible.  I was told that I couldn't check in over the phone until we were anchored.  OK.  We went to our old anchorage, having to wait for a scheduled opening of the West Venetian bridge, and I called in.  Okay, easy enough.  Then I was told that we'd also have to visit the customs office in person within the next 24 hours.  F$%#ing fantastic.  

It's worth noting at this point that we had both developed swimmers' ear infections in the night before our trip home.  We were achy and feverish and unhappy.  Also underslept due to our early departure. And it was pouring rain.  

We crossed back under the bridge at the next scheduled opening (it opens every 30 minutes, and there's a big sign in front warning that causing the bridge to open unnecessarly can result in a $250,000 fine.  The customs office was located at the cruise port and we quickly acertained that there was no way in hell anyone was going to let us tie the boat up there while we checked in.  Next plan.  We paid an outrageous $18 to tie the boat up at a municipal marina that was about a mile from the customs office.  In the rain.  Some people came out to help us tie up, but it would have been better to just let us do it ourselves.  Between the rain, the distraction of too many people, our ear pain, and not having had lunch, we managed to ram the front of the starboard pontoon into a concrete wall.  F%#$ing fantastic.  It was all right, fortunately.  I started to climb a ladder up to take another line from Cody and the ladder I stepped on hastily was designed to pull down.  I steppped on it wrong and it slid a foot down, causing me to crunch my knee and shin into the sharp aluminum rungs.  One of the unhelpful people who came otu to help said, "Are you all right?"  I almost punched him.  I went down below to cry a little and clean out my bleeding knee and left Cody to tie up alone.  Eventually he needed my help, so I pulled it together and we secured the boat.  What a fiasco.  We blathely ignored the customs official's instructions to go nowhere else before we'd checked in and went to CVS for ear drops.  They did literally nothing.  So we walked a miserable mile in the rain and checked in at customs.  It was quick and they had air conditioning.  

On the walk back we stopped by a clinic located at the cruiseport and went in to ask about our ears.  They were incredibly nice and helpful and said they'd see us both even though they were closing in 15 minutes, but they wouldn't take our insurance, so we decided to give it a day to see if things got any better.  We stopped to get food on the way back to the boat - my dinner that night consisted of jalepeno poppers and onion rings.  Healthy, Mar, and really good for your immunity and ear and stuff.  Genius.  We went back under the bridge, hoping it was the last time that day, anchored, and passed out.  

We awoke both still in a lot of pain and Cody called our insurance company to find a place to get looked at.  We took a cab, but the first place we went to didn't open until 3 PM.  What?  We hadn't had breakfast of coffee so I insisted we got to Denny's, where, swear to god, I had one of the nicest breakfasts of the trip.  Go figure, huh?  Thus fueled, we sprung for another cab and found a Fast Care that was open.  On Thursday, at 10 AM.  How radical.

We were seen together, which was sort of unusual but convenient enough, and given a prescription for ear drops and optional antibiotics.  Obviously we'd just been having too much fun snorkeling and being in the water every single day.  It happens.  We filled our prescriptions, shopped for groceries, and went back to the boat to feel sorry for ourselves.

The next day was laundry day, and our quest for a laundromat led us on a 3 mile goose chase into some pretty sketchy neighborhoods.  After finally finding a laundromat we had a really nice lunch at a cool old diner, and took care of a couple more errands.  Our final day in Miami we took a bus to South Beach and saw a movie.  It was so cold in the theater I wished I'd brought my hoody.  We ate more crap food and got next to no physical activity.  Whatever, we were still recovering from our ear infections.

The next two days were spent sailing down to Key Largo via Biscayne Bay and the Card Sound.  It was very pleasant.  We anchored in Tarpon Basin and were quickly accosted (that might be too harsh a word) by the permanent liveabaords who called the basin home.  They were pretty nice, I guess. I rented a car the next day to drive to Miami to pick up my mom.  She got in late so got us a room at Embassy Suites - another blissful night in AC and on a stationary surface, although I did miss the Captain.  We drove to Key Largo and met up with Cody and spent the next week introducing my mom to life on the boat.  We had a hotter and dryer than average week - our first days with no thunderstorms in over a month.  We snorkeled the amazing reef system, staying mostly within the middle Keys.  We saw so many turtles!  I'd promised my mom dolphins, whihc was a mistake, because it made me a liar.  But the turtles!  So many big beautiful sea turtles.  We did some hiking on Long Key, read a lot, and ate too much.  It was very nice, and very relaxing.  My mom and Noble were the only two who were able to make it down to sail with us! She left yesterday, taking a shuttle back to Miami and flying home this morning.

So here we are!  Up to date!  Leaving me free to fill my next blog posts with facinating stories of sail changes and canned food.  I didn't take many pictures because I knew my mom would take tons, but until I get her to email me some I have nothing to post from our time in the keys.  All words and no pictures?  What a rip off.

Bimini

At the moment I'm freezing in air conditioned business lounge in an Embassy Suites near Miami Airport.  My mom is coming for a visit and I'll be picking her up tonight.  I left Cody with the boat down in Key Largo - our first night apart since we began this wacky trip.  I'm doing laundry and printing information on good snorkeling locations near the Keys, and I figured it would be quite the luxury to type a blog post on a real computer.  It is.  But I wish I'd brought my hoody.  I think the AC must be down at 60 - at least that's what my room was set to before I had a chance to crank it back to 75. 

Anyway, I wanted to write about our trip to Bimini, Bahama, which is where I left off last time.  We spent a hot night anchored in Miami, with our alarms set for 3 AM.  Between the heat, the airport noise, and the guys who were engaged in a verbal dispute in the neighboring park for an hour (I was seriously wishing someone would just punch someone and then shut up, but alas, the yelling went on and on) we didn't get much sleep.  Undeterred, we rose with our alarms, hauled up anchor, and got moving.

The wind was predicted to be out of the Southeast, which isn't ideal when you're heading, oh, southeast.  We were shooting straight across the gulf stream which at time moves at 3 knots northward, and we'd decided that regardless of wind we would keep our speed no less than 5 knots.  So we basically motored across.  We had a smooth crossing, with our biggest trouble being from the seaweed floating in big clumps on the surface of the water that would clog up our engine, forcing us to stop and clear it off.  We had read that one should aim 2 degrees further south than the destination for each hour of travel across the gulf stream, so figuring 10 hours we pointed 20 degrees south of Bimini.  That proved unnecessary and halfway to our destination we corrected course.  At any rate, seaweed not withstanding, we had a very smooth crossing.

As we grew closer to the entrace to North Bimini Harbor we could see the bluegreen glow of the water, as light shone through it to the white sandy bottom.  I can truly say I didn't think water was actually that color.  I mean, sure, there are pictures of it like that in magazines and stuff, but that must be photoshop, right?  Or 1 in 1000 days.  But no, it's really like that, every day.  It was breathtaking.

We motored up to Alice Town and dropped anchor just across from Customs.  We raised our yellow quarentine flag (stitched together from a $1 Pet Supermarket shopping bag, rather than dropping $20 on a yellow flag from West Marine that we'll use once) and Cody dinghied to shore, passports and boat registration in hand, to deal with customs.  As per instructions I remained with the ship, but did allow myself a quick dip in the gorgeous water while I waited.  Customs was easy, and Cody was back in a half hour.

What to say about the rest of our time in Bimini?  A day by day account would get redundent, so I'll touch on the highlights.

We spent 12 days exploring the islands that make up Bimini - North and South Bimini, and Gun Cay.  There's also Cat Cay, but that's a private island for the 1% and we didn't feel like dealing with it.  We snorkeled almost every day, including a wreck snorkel on the Sapona, a partially submerged ship in about 10 feet of water.  It was there that we saw a big nurse shark who definitely swam over to check us out.  It was very cool.  One day we were heading north to find dolphins and, lo and behold, we found dolphins, and right outside the harbor.  I told Cody I was going to jump overboard (we had full sail up) and he finally said OK, go for it.  We swam with the dolphins for a while (Cody joined me after dropping sail and setting the anchor - I'm a bad wife) and it was amazing.  There were a good dozen of them, and they were digging something up from the sandy bottom to eat.  The water was close to 40 feet deep, but with the light and the clean water and the white sand it was easy to see the dolphins as they nosed around for a snack.  Occasionally they'd come to the surface and swim close by.  It was very, very neat.  We also swam with sting rays!  The first day we went down to Gun Cay we anchored in the little open harbor on the north end, called Honeymoon Harbor.  A guy was there with his two kids and they were feeding a bunch of stingrays that live in the harbor.  He invited us to feed them the shrimp he'd brought and it was completely amazing.  They were clearly used to being fed and would come right up and eat the shrimp out of our hands.  You could touch them as they swam around and their skin was amazing - not like fish skin, more like a dolphin or something.  I as completely enamored with the stingrays.  There was one who was missing his tail aand I named him Stumpy.

That was on the eve of my 31st birthday, and I woke up the next morning, my birthday, to a beautiful deserted harbor.  Might I recommend skinny dipping off your own deserted island for your next birthday?  It really can't be beat.  I then donned swimwear and swam with the stingrays again.  Stumpy came over and swam around, clearly wishing me a happy birthday.  We headed back up to North Bimini later that morning, stopping along the way to snorkel Turtle Rocks, which was amazing.

Cody had offered me a choice - scuba diving or a hotel - for my birthday present.  It was a tough one. One particularly bumpy and thunderstormy night made up my mind for me; I wanted to sleep inside, on something that didn't move.  I know, that's soooo boring compared with scuba diving with hammerheads.  What can I say?  Cody got us a room at Resorts World Bimini, and we had a lovely dinner at one of their very fancy restaurants.  The next morning we dawdled in the room, watching the Tour on ESPN and savoring our last few hours of air conditioning.  Happy birthday to me.

As we neared the end of our stay we wanted to check a few things off the must-do list, and one of those was to revisit the sting rays and bring our own shrimp to feed them.  The day before we set sail back for Miami we went back down to Honeymoon Harbor.  This time our plan was to don snorkels and feed them off the boat in the deeper water so we could watch them swim around (when we'd fed them before we'd been sitting in a foot of water just off the beach).  Well, that ended up being a little more intense than we'd planned.  While I'm not afraid of sting rays, it's a little intimidating when three of them are swimming towards you in aggressive pursuit of the bag of shrimp you're clutching.  After a few minutes of nervous snorkel-giggles and attempts to fend off some rather forward rays, we went back to the beach and resumed feeding them in the more controllable manner.

Later in the day Cody baked us a pumpkin pie on the grill.  Pumpkin pie.  In the Bahamas.  In July.  It was amazing, by the way.  And we were treated with an extraordinary sunset that night, the eve of our departure.

We arose the next morning at 3 AM to leave for Miami.  We'd been tossing around some ideas regarding our return to Gloucester, and our plans were contingent on my comfort with sailing Tri-oomph in the dark by myself (while Cody sleeps).  So after we rose sail Cody went back to bed and I took the helm as we entered the Gulf Stream.  I felt good with it and was encouraged, which furthered our plans of which I'll reveal in a later blog post.

But to wrap up, Bimini was amazing, and totally worth the trip.  The people were incredibly nice and helpful and we felt comfortable wherever we went.  What a great place.

Seriously amazing water.

Birthday girl under the full moon, post lovely dinner.

You can practically see the air conditioning.

Last sunset in Bimini did not disappoint!

Stumpy!

Welcome to Hurricane Country - Part 2

One quickly wearies of fighting the tides when motoring in and out of inlets, so we had a late start to our day leaving St. Augustine.  We followed the tide out at 9 AM, then tried to make progress down the Florida coast.  That progress was impeded somewhat by a stiff wind out of the South, however, and we found ourselves only 20 miles away from St. Augustine when the sun set.  Cody decided he'd like to sail through the night (sort of a foregone conclusion at that point) and I went to bed telling him to wake me when we reached our intended inlet.  He didn't, but the change in heading woke me anyway and for the first time we navigated an unknown inlet in the dark.  It was midnight by now and I went back to bed while Cody motored South on the ICW.  Again, in the dark.  I actually slept pretty well, although I did awaken when Cody ran aground on a sand bar.  He motored us off of it quickly and I fell back asleep. 

At 5 AM we were almost out of gas and near the only fuel within 20 miles of us, so we dropped anchor and I insisted that Cody sleep a couple hours before we made the 2 mile walk the gas station.  After an all too brief 3 hour nap we rowed to shore and tied the dinghy to the dock we were near.  Our guide book said there was a marina and campground, but all that was in evidence was a trailer park and boat ramp.  We walked to the gas station, filled up, and armed ourselves with cold drinks for the hot walk back, which was sure to feel longer with full jerry cans.  After a quarter mile or so a truck pulled over and the man behind the wheel offered us a ride.  We told him we were on a sail boat and had almost run out of fuel.  He said that he was working on a sail boat, trying to get it in the water, and he was happy to help sailboat people out.  He pulled into the trailer park and drove us down to the dock.  He knew the man who lived in the trailer at the end of the drive, and he called out, and I kid you not, "Morning Cleetus!"  Yes.  We met a southern man in a trailer park named Cleetus.  Immediately a man on a quad came down the road to see who was down by the dock, as did a woman in a golf cart who managed the park.  They were both set to hassle us, but our friend with the truck intercepted them and vouched for us.  We really couldn't have gotten luckier with our ride.  He gave us advice on the Bahamas, which he'd travelled extensively, and sent us on our way.

There was no wind to speak of that day, and we were limited to motoring the ICW.  We made decent progress but called it a day fairly early, dropping anchor just south of Cocoa.  The next day we found ourselves in a large sound, formally known as the Indian River, with the wind coming from the North.  Anytime we have an opportunity to go on a run on flat water our eyes light up and we start thinking about hauling up the spinnaker.  We had debated whether or not to bring it along on this trip, and that day we were rewarded for hauling it down the eastern seaboard with a gorgeous run that took us into the early afternoon.  Without that big beautiful sail we were moving along at 3 knots with the main and jib, but when we raised the spinnaker we were cruising along at 6.  The other cruisers motoring up and down the ICW looked on with envy and gave us friendly waves and thumbs up as we sailed smoothly by.  Eventually our wind died and we were once again motoring.  It was a lovely day, though, and the shores along the Indian River are lined with sprawling parks and Mediterannean-esque homes.  Way above our tax bracket. We had a long day and eventually dropped outside of Vero Beach.  

One consequence of our somewhat limited storage is that we, or rather, I, was forced to be rather judicious in choosing my wardrobe for the next 3 months.  We started out each with a crate of 2'x1'x1'. I sorted my clothes, packed them in gallon zip-lock bags and squeezed all the air out.  Cody had a hearty laugh at this heretofore unknown organizational side of me and wondered outloud how long this system would last.  This made me predictably angry, and then rueful when, 2 weeks into the trip I abandoned the bags.  Organizing my clothing is not a thing I do.  As I've grown older I've improved at some of my efforts at being a fully functional adult - it took me until this spring and my umpteenth semester of education to finally get straight A's - but organizing my clothing is a complete anathama to me.  Cody knows this fact better than myself, apparently.  Anyway, I now occupy both of the larger crates while Cody moved his clothing into one crate half the size of one of mine.  And it's not even full, and he's adopted my clothing-bagging method.  Whatever.  Anyway, my point in all this is that we don't have many clothing options and we find ourselves needing to do laundry with some regularity.  Anything longer than a week and the boat starts getting pretty ripe.  It's hot, we're sweaty, salty, and we eat in bed.  Don't judge.

The day we woke up outside of Vero Beach we were approaching laundry day and were considering leaving from our next stop, West Palm Beach, bound for the Bahamas in a couple days.  Not knowing the availability of coin-op laundry in the islands, we decided we should go with the maximum articles of clean clothing, towels and sheets.  With this in mind we stopped just before the St Lucie Inlet (our last chance to leave the ICW before it became an intolerable concrete channel with strong currents that regularly crossed bascule bridges with set opening schedules.)  We motored upriver to the town of Stuart and anchored just past a pretty fancy marina.  There was a dinghy dock, so we loaded up our laundry, paddled over, and walked into the laundry room like we belonged there.  If I've learned nothing else on this trip it's that if you look like you belong no one will give you a hard time.  Laundry room usage was of course supposed to be limited to guests at the marina and resort, not rifraff like us, but no one seemed to object to our presence.  We had a couple cocktails while we waited, saw a couple get married (inexplicably right next to the very crowded resort pool), collected our laundry, and split before anyone figured out that we didn't belong.  We motored back downriver and anchored outside of the channel, baked bread and pizza, and had a pleasant evening.

West Palm Beach had been our goal for a number of weeks - our intended jumping off point for paradise.  We sailed down and reached the Lake Worth Inlet that brings one into West Palm Beach just as a large thunderstorm blew over.  Fortunately it was a quick one and our visibility wasn't diminished sufficiently to make navigation in the inlet dicey.  This was a Sunday, and the boat traffic coming in and out of the Lake Worth area was insane.  We made it past the worst of it when two men on a small motor boat hollared at us.  They had run out of gas at a most inopportune time and and requested a tow to the boat ramp.  Another important lesson, true in life but most especially in the boating community:  what goes around comes around.  We've been so lucky with the people who have helped us when we've needed it and we always jump at an opportunity to pay it forward.  I grabbed one of our two gallon cans of mixed fuel and handed it to the guy.  We motored around while he emptied it into his gas tank then tried to get it started, but something went wrong (my guess is he flooded it) and he couldn't get the engine started.  We tossed him a line and towed them in to the boat ramp, which wasn't far out of our way.  That completed we went back to our intended anchorage.  It was a nice one, with good holding and protection, and a little beach where we could leave the dinghy.  

We weren't too sure what our plan of departure was but we definitely needed groceries, so we went to shore, got ice cream (natch), and visited the conveniently located supermarket, Publix.  This was our first encounter with Publix, but not our last.  It's a pretty nice store.  We picked up lots of groceries with a Bahamas trip in mind, as well as a bottle of rum.  We also stumbled across a mango tree in the front yard of an abandoned hotel, and we procured a mango.  In retrospect I wish we'd grabbed a couple.  

We got back to the boat, and checked the weather.  It was then that we first read about the low pressure system that would develop into Tropical Storm Arthur.  At this point it was to the north of us, but it was predicted to move south, meanwhile picking up strength, before heading north again.  We weighed our options and decided to stay put for a couple days and wait until we could have a relaxed passage across the gulf stream.  We ran some errands and made plans.  On the day that we were supposed to see the strongest weather we set a second anchor (our 17 lb danforth has been unmoveable, but when they're predicting 60 mph winds it's good to be safe).  And the storm was . . . sorta weak.  It was hardly windy that day, a little rainy when we went for a run, but generally a pretty mellow day.  We even went snorkeling.  Go figure.  Certainly it did pick up strength, but our first tropical storm encounter was sort of a bust.  Which is a good thing, where such storms are concerned, I suppose.

With all that time sitting around the boat we reconsidered our Bahamas plan.  We were both pretty worn out from always being on the move, and a jump over to Grand Bahama followed by a rushed tour of the Abacos just sounded exhausting.  We opted instead to sail south to Miami and spend our two offshore weeks in Bimini, Bahama.  One place, no need to rush around.  It was somewhat less adventurous, but some day we'll be back to the Abacos.  With that in mind, we headed south yet again.

It took us two short days to reach Miami, with a stop in Pompano Beach along the way.  Pompano Beach has this silly looking little harbor (on first glance one wonders how it can offer any protection at all) that is actually very still and offers good holding and a free town dock for day use.  

We got caught out in our strongest storm yet just before we reached the inlet.  Our approach is to drop sail and motor through, to avoid having to drop sail in 40 mph winds and the associated stress of such a task.  We were less than a quarter mile offshore and could hardly see 30 feet when we were in the thick of it, with stronger winds than we'd seen before and rain so big it felt like hail (I'd hate to experience hail).  A week before we'd been on a starboard tack with the dinghy right-side-up on the port trampoline.  The sea got choppy and we found ourselves with a dinghy over half full with water.  To avoid such situations in the future we flipped it upside down.  Unfortunately, this allows it to catch significantly more wind than right-side-up.  In the storm outside Pompano the dinghy was bungy'ed to our starboard trampline and the wind was coming from the east.  The wind gusted up enough to lift the dinghy up and almost send it hurtling into our mast.  Ruh-roh. As Cody continued to steer us through the driving rain, I climbed out onto the pontoon and flipped the dinghy back over.  I found myself unable to secure it without potentially ending up in the drink, so I did the next best thing and sat on it.  140 pounds of ballast keping it down, hopefully.  Cody told me to be careful so I grabbed the loose end of the main halyard and tied it around my wrist.   There.  Safety first.

Like all thunderstorms it came to an end before too long.  We were almost to Pompano Beach by then, and when we saw the free dock we thanked our lucky stars.  Then we saw the bagel shop next door and assumed divine intervention.  After tying up to the deserted dock we scuttled over for a hot chocolate and a toasted bagel with cream cheese.  Man, I have not been getting my bagel quota on this trip!  I need to work harder.

After a rainy but quiet night in Pompano Beach we struck out for Miami.  The wind sucked in the morning, so we motored most of the way.  When the wind did pick up, a scant 5 miles from Miami, it was out of the South.  We'd been pacing a larger catamaran all day and they had their sails up, and Cody said he felt inadequate motoring when other people were sailing, so we raised sailes and slowly tacked our way south.  We finally made it inside Miami Harbor, and after a fair amount of hunting around for fuel in the blazing sun, we found a place to anchor.  We were both overheated, dehydrated, and exhausted, so we dinghied to shore and went out to dinner.  Then Cody picked up an extra 5 gallon can of fuel while I grabbed a couple groceries to make our sail to Bimini the next day easier.  After some waffling we'd decided we wanted to leave early the next morning, July 4th, because the wind looked most favorable and because the very last thing I wanted to do was spend the 4th in Miami.  Cheers to independence, but no thanks.

I sort of love the pelicans. This one outside Vero Beach.

We bought drinks and fries, can we use your laundry room?

Ah yes. That looks about right.

Welcome to the Heart of Hurricane Country - Part 1

It was a 50 mile sail from Cumberland Island to St. Augustine, and we had, for the most part, great conditions.  We were able to hold a good course and the seas were relatively flat.  This was our first experience with Florida's wonderously deep shores.  Unlike Georgia, where we were never in waters deeper than 20 feet, even miles out from shore, Florida's coastal shelf drops off right away.  The contour line goes from beach, to 8 feet, to 30.  What does that mean for the coastal sailor?  Smooth sailing.  Most of the time.  While a slight breeze kicks up a big chop in shallow water, it takes some more serious weather to make those deep Florida waters get choppy.  In Georgia we would have to follow an inlet for 5 miles to get clear of the shoals and breakers, but in Florida we could head straight for land.  We wouldn't be aground until we were on the beach itself.  Seriously.  

Along that Georgia/Florida border there was tons of fishing - mostly shrimping, I think.  We spent a fair amount of our sail from Cumberland avoiding fishing boats, and at one point Cody decided to hail one who's course seemed unclear.  He asked me, "Does that say Miss Madeline?"  I pulled out the binoculars and looked, scanning only the second word.  "No, it looks like Magdeline."  He hailed on the radio, "Miss Madeline, Miss Madeline, this is the green sailing vessel off your starboard, come in."  (yes, I told him Magdeline, he knew it was Magdeline, it came out Madeline anyway.)  No response.  He tried again.  Again, no response.  Well, they seemed to be trying to go in across our bow, so we pointed out to give them time to get across us.  Coool, no big deal.  

Later in the day the thunderclouds started to build.  We had heard that Florida is sort of infamous for it's daily summer thunderstorms, and were reluctantly (on my part) prepared to encounter them.  We decided to pull down the jib, reef the main, and motor sail.  We were scantily clad (swim wear, because the day was hot) but put on our life jackets, hooked into safety lines, and fastened everything down.  As we approached the dark cloud and the wind pushed it over us we were overtaken by the ship we'd been hailing on the radio earlier.  On closer, or perhaps more through, inspection, we saw that it was actually called the Mary Magdeline.  Not only did that make more sense as a name, but it also explained the radio silence.  We followed the Mary Magdeline into the storm. 

Now, I'm not Catholic, nor remotely religious, but I have read a lot of Dan Brown novels and I'd be lying if I said I didn't take some comfort in following the Mary Magdeline through that storm.   What was the part about the Last Supper?  And Tom Hanks at the Louvre?

Anyway.

As we entered the worst of the storm the winds picked up to nearly 40 knots, the rain felt like hail against the skin, and visibility was limited.  Lighting struck all around us, thunder echoing off the land so we heard it twice for each strike.  The ocean looked crazy between the wind, spray, and rain.  As the wind gusted up Cody released the main sheet so our fully reefed sail wouldn't catch any wind, and it beat furiously against the lazy jacks.  Cody said, "Can you hold the tiller?  I need to pull down the sail."  Up until then I'd been sitting just behind the cabin, holding on to the seat, looking down to keep the  rain and nightmarish visions of death at sea from my eyes.  I took the tiller while Cody ran up to drop the sail, hoping that lightning didn't decide to hit the mast while Cody was touching it.  Once the main was down life got a little less crazy.  The noise of the outboard always intensifies even innocuous situations, and combined with the sound of the storm and the flapping of the sail the noises were almost overwhelming.  

But like all storms, it passed.  In a blink of an eye we could again see the shore, and the wind diminished.  The sky lightened somewhat but the rain contined.  Freezing cold, we dug out our long-since-stowed Grundens and bundled up against the rain and cold air.  We had 5 more miles until we reached St. Augustine and we left the sails down and the motor running.  

St. Augustine used to be a haven for cruisers, but the city had a problem with derelicts on derelict boats anchoring off of their lovely downtown area and de-classing the place.  So, they put in a big city-run mooring field and told everyone they had to anchor elsewhere.  Our guide book (Skipper Bob's!) recommended motoring up the river a bit and anchoring near one of thee marinas.  We passed many, many derelict boats anchored near the river or at some sort of shady marinas.  I like to think we're fairly unjudgemental people, but we like to maintain our boat and our property and it's hard not to say, "Okay, so, you live on that boat, maybe wanna scrape the 2 inches off moss off the top of it?"  That makes me sound like a jerk.  Well, sometimes I am.

Anyway, we motored up the river and saw what I firmly believe was a sea monster finning (twice) and found the recommended anchorage.  There was room for exactly us, nothing more.  We dropped two anchors, then dinghied to shore to get dinner at Hurricane Patty's.  After a long day of sailing and getting soaked we needed an adult beverage or two.  We got dinner and then went to the bar to watch the World Cup, but it was super crowded and we were a little overdone by then, and headed back to the boat.

We had long heard tales of a wonderous place in St. Augustine called the Sailor's Exchange, where one can buy and trade used or newish boating gear.  We wanted to go there, but we also needed to do some grocery shopping, so we deferred the fun stuff until after the business.  We asked the dockmaster at the marina if we could leave our dinghy there and he allowed it, no charge.  We walked a mile or so to Target, because we needed propane and stuff and it looked like one of those super Targets where they have groceries too.  On the way we walked by a fruit stand (Henry's Tomato Stand, to be precise) and could get our produce there on the way back.  En rroute to Target we found, bless my soul, a Dunkin' Donuts!  We aren't huge Dunks fans, generally preferring coffee with, you know, flavor and quality and stuff, but we are New Englanders, and as such we can't help but see a Dunkin' Donuts and feel a little homesick.  Stop we did, and got some cold berverages and maybe I had a donut, too.  Donuts are sort of like unicorns, too.  Delicious, ubiquitous unicorns.

After this little side trip we arrived at Target.  I love Target.  It's a guilty pleasure.  Cody hates it and says it smells funny.  Whatever.  I was so happy to be in Target I was nearly in tears.  We had a successsful shopping trip, where Cody found a tank top he'd long been searching for, then walked back to the boat, stopping at Henry's Tomato Stand and loading up on delicious and dirt cheap produce on the way.  After unloading at the boat we set out for Sailor's Exchange.  

It did not disappoint.  We spent an hour digging through boxes of hardware and piles of sailcloth.  The only problem was, we didn't really need anything.  We walked up to the counter with a canvas tarp (for shade and rain), a couple brass clips, and an old, smallish propane tank.  Cody asked the man behind the counter if they had any Dometic coolers.  They're these really neat fridge/freezer coolers for boats that plug into an AC or DC outlet.  Cody had been researching them to determine if we had enough charging power to keep one on, if it would fit in our space, and if it would completely bankrupt us.  They did have one, in their warehouse, that was just like new.  It was the larger size than we'd been looking for, but the price was right (or, so wrong it was right?) so we decided to get it.  The man helping us was awesome and had one on his own boat, En Vie Dansante, which as it turned out was on a slip at the marina near us.  He arranged for Cody to come with him to work in the morning to pick up the Dometic and get a ride back.  That afternoon he and his wife gave us a ride back to the boat and invited uss to come over for a glass of wine.  En Vie Dansante is a really nice 35 foot cat - not too big, not too small, and really nicely laid out.   

After a lovely hour of drink, snack and conversation we took our leave to walk around downtown St. Augustine.  It's a really nice area, dominated by Flagler University and lots of Spanish-stylle construction.  We walked to the A1A Brewery and just made happy hour (on a cruiser's budget you can't underestimate the power of happy hour).  Then we walked down the dock to check out the amazing galleon ships we'd seen docked when we'd come in the day before.  They charge to tour them, like a museum exhibit, but we talked to a guy who was crew on the larger of the two, El Galeon. It was built in Spain in 2009 and they'd sailed it over to the US.  Interesting fact, square-rigged boats can't head upwind.  Makes sense, but I'd never thought about it.  The guy looked at us like we were idiots when we asked how close to the wind they can sail.  Anyway, the other ship, the smaller, Nao Victoria, was a replica of Magellan's ship - the first to circumnavigate the world - and had recreated his historic journey.  Anyway, big wooden boats are cool, and having the guts to jump on one to sail around the world is pretty rad.  

As we were walking off the ship we saw a sea turtle!  A bigger one, about a foot and  half long, happily eating plantlife off the dock.  We walked around the historic fort and the older parts of town, all very neat.  We'd both been wearing our flip-flops and mine had been bothering my feet, so we ended up walking around town barefoot and I felt like a dirty vagrant.  Not to worry, our friends on En Vie Dansante had given us the code to use the shower at the marina, so we were able to wash up when we got back.

The next day we retrieved and set up our fridge, picked up our part for and fixed the foot pump, and generally prepared to depart.  We decided to walk to see a movie at a theater (X-Men, because we're not very sophisticated film-viewers), and then got caught in a storm on the walk back.  We hung out in front of a gas station until Cody started feeling awkward, then took a cab back to the boat.  It was an insane torrential downpour, and we waited for it to subside before paddling back to the boat.  

I really intended to make this one post, but it's grown far too long and who the hell would read it?   I mean, has anyone even made it to this point???   If you have, I'll reward you with pictures.    

Beer! A1A Brewery

Sea turtle magic.

A man and his fridge.

Being those shady people outside a gas station.